” Soros has recently purchased 1.3 billion dollars worth of put options on the S&P 500. Some have tried to down play this as merely hedging, but putting everything on one single position (the decline of the S&P) looks more like a calculated gamble than a conservative hedging strategy.

Of course Soros probably isn’t going to come right out and tell us what he’s up to, but his comments in a recent blog post hinted at the fact that he sees the danger of a repeat of the 2008 crash (though he claims the slowdown in China is the biggest danger).”

A handful of the mutual funds contacted by Emanuel — Allianz, BlackRock, Vanguard, and Capital World Investments — submitted those forms and reported last week that they would retain ownership of Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger and Company.

” The stock market volatility of late puts into question how much longer the current uptrend can last. Dividend-paying ETFs can cushion the blow of day-to-day gyrations and offer investors something for sitting on their hands. Here’s a look at five of the fattest-dividend paying ETFs on the market and what’s driving there performance.

With the exception of iShares FTSE NAREIT Mortgage REIT ETF (REM), all of these are very thinly traded, so they’ll likely have wider bid-ask spreads than more liquid ETFs and it may take longer for your brokerage to fill an order.

EWHS gapped down $3.79, or 12.75%, on Dec. 18 when it paid out $3.70 a share in income.

EWHS is trading below the 50-day average but above the 200-day line, which means it’s in a weak uptrend. Nearly half of assets are devoted to consumer discretionary companies, a fifth is in financials and one-seventh is in technology. EWHS trades at a slight discount to emerging markets with a price-earnings ratio of 11.89 and price-to-book of 1.03. Emerging markets have a P-E of 12.3 and P-B of 1.58. “

“My father taught me how to throw a baseball and divide big numbers in my head and build a life where I’d be home in time to eat dinner with my kid most nights. He and my mother put me through college and urged me to follow my dreams. He never complained when I entered a field even less respected than his. He lives across the country and still calls just to check in and say he loves me.

His name is Tom. He is 63, tall and lean, a contracts lawyer in a small Oregon town. A few wisps of hair still reach across his scalp. The moustache I have never seen him without has faded from deep brown to silver. The puns he tormented my younger brother and me with throughout our childhood have evolved, improbably, into the funniest jokes my 6-year-old son has ever heard. I love my dad fiercely, even though he’s beaten me in every argument we’ve ever had except two, and even though he is, statistically and generationally speaking, a parasite.

This is the charge I’ve leveled against him on a summer day in our Pacific Northwest vision of paradise. I have asked my favorite attorney to represent a very troublesome client, the entire baby-boom generation, in what should be a slam-dunk trial—for me. On behalf of future generations, I am accusing him and all the other parasites his age of breaking the sacred bargain that every American generation will pass a better country on to its children than the one it inherited.”

” Senior White House adviser and long-time Obama confidant Valerie Jarrett’s role in a number of controversial Chicago housing developments has garnered her investments worth millions
of dollars while highlighting the
administration’s extensive business ties to presidential donors.”